House Always Wins
by BoloBouncer
Summary: Cuddy and the Board make House choose his first team. See the original case that brought Foreman, Chase and Cameron together.
1. There's No House in Team

"And that's why you should never sleep with your mother."

House left the clinic with his stereotypical swagger. He passed the nurses' station and winked through the glass door to Cuddy. She waved him in.

"You rang?"

Cuddy threw a folder down on her desk and pushed it toward House.

"It's time for you to hire a team."

"Me? Hire a team? Why, I'm ten teams in one." He picked up the file.

"It's time for you to teach some other young geniuses so that they can be 'ten teams' one day, too. This world isn't just you and this is a teaching hospital, if you hadn't noticed."

"I'm teaching people all the time," House replied, getting quieter. He thumbed through thoughtfully. "Romio Tagore. You know I don't like Indian food."

Cuddy gave him a look.

"Jack Thompson. Too white," he said curtly. "Is this a candidate file or a therapy list for mommy issues?"

"Look," Cuddy said. "The Board and I have agreed that you cannot continue here unless you choose at least three team members for fellowship positions. We all can and will pull your tenure. I'd rather have a semi-genius that can pass on his skills than a hermit genius that won't play the game."

"Oh, I'd play a lot of games. This one's just not as appealing as others," House said, dropping the file. He looked at Cuddy's legs. "Going to bend over and pick that up for me?"

Cuddy shook her head and knelt to get the folder.

House cocked his head.

"The land down under," he said. "I noticed you slipped an Aussie in there. The fun we'll have."

-

"Joanne's mother just died," Wilson said as he and House ate in the hospital cafeteria.

House dangled a croissant in front of his face. "And that's why I should never sleep with her mother," he said.

"What?"

"Nothing. So, you get to attend a funeral. Too bad I'll be stuck here sizing people for their doom." House's eyes went wide.

"You can get a little cocky after having saved so many people. You deserve it, but you still should have a team. You should be teaching others what you know."

House faked confusion. "You mean, teach others how to be me? Let's see. I could get a time machine. Well, a shrink ray. Well, a de-aging ray. What's the prescription for turning people into children again? I forget."

"They don't need to BE you, House. I wouldn't wish that on anybody, but they need to see how you solve cases. It's a gift you have to share with the world."

House put the last bit of croissant in his mouth. "Sharing. What do you think I am, a communist?"

"I think you're a friend," Wilson said. "I think you're a money-borrowing, food-stealing friend."

"I think you want me to pick someone out of the stack just for you. That, or you want me to go to a funeral. I'd much rather pick the hot blonde you want to sleep with than pretend to mourn with the decent blonde you're cheating on."

"Dr. Allison Cameron. Just give her file a twice over, will you?"

"Oh, I'll give it three," House stood up. "For you."

-

"Your chart says that you're anemic," House said to the five year old patient sitting in the clinic. The little boy nodded.

"Well, that's normal." House looked up at the child's mother and nodded. "Isn't that normal?" She got the message and reassured her son.

"Oh, that's very normal, sweety. Very...treatable."

"There are three things," House emphasized, "that can ward off vampires. Holy water. Crosses. Garlic." He pulled out a needle. "Anemics would be number four unless Count Dracula suddenly turns vegan, which I wouldn't put past him. He is so upper class."

The mother looked confused.

"Now, Superman. He's another issue altogether. Heat ray. Cold breath. X-Ray vision. To ward that off, well, you'd need lead, which you've been eating off the walls in that fun old playhouse sitting in your backyard." He looked at the boy who was shaking his head. "Shed?" The boy shook his head again. "Treehouse?" The child nodded.

"Shot?" House said, holding up the needle. The boy shook his head again.


	2. Basic Math

"Twenty year old female patient that can't do math." House tapped his cane on the desk. "Sure she's not just looking for an excuse to skip tax season?"

Cuddy grabbed the end of his cane. "No. She's had several illnesses before: meningitis, mono. Presented earlier today with severe seizures while on campus transit."

"She goes to Princeton?"

"She goes to Princeton." Cuddy pulled out a flash drive. "This is deceptively small."

House tapped his cane. "This is not."

She tossed him the drive and he plugged it into the computer. Massive amounts of data began popping up on his screen. House leaned forward intently. "No wonder nobody could figure this out. She has everything."

"I don't need to tell you how many doctors she's been to prior but she's never had seizures before. Nobody can pin this down. I don't think anyone could begin to pin this down. I know you're good but now would be the perfect time to bring in a-

"Busload of Korean refugees?" House stood up. "If I had known we were getting political, I would have worn a flag pin." He tapped the computer monitor with his cane. "Annie Heller? Daughter of CIA Director Jonathan Heller. You brought me a top secret, classified case."

"It's not secret or classified," Cuddy said, backing toward the door.

"No, it just means with all the spooks snooping through my cache that I'll have to encrypt my porn."

"Too late," Cuddy said and smiled. She walked out.

-

"CIA operative turns into daddy, turns into daddy of the world's most randomly sick girl."

Wilson sat in his desk while House poked around in the couch.

"Got any cookies?"

"No and I don't think it would be a bad thing for you to score some points with the head of the CIA. By the way, have you met him yet?"

"I haven't accepted the case yet."

"Of course. Girl presents with the most complicated case known in the history of man and you'd much rather be digging animal crackers out of your friend's couch."

"Cookies. Not animal crackers. Besides. She's a woman, not a girl."

"Difference being?" Wilson asked.

"Women have sex. Ergo, this woman has sex. She's the daughter of the CIA director which means she's good at keeping things hush-hush which means drugs and sex. Multiply drugs times sex times attractive twenty year old female and, voila, you have a complex case, but not a complicated one."

"Ah, yes, House. Because while a garbage man can dump hundreds of bags of trash in a day, only you can figure out who has been throwing whose used condoms in those bags of trash."

"Career counseling just never fit my mojo. I prefer behind-the-scenes Jerry Springer puppetmaster. Aha." House pulled a box of animal crackers from behind a cushion.

"Just seems odd, you know?" Wilson said, smiling. "In a world full of detox, rehab, counseling and moral puppetmastery, that a girl could get so messed up that she couldn't do simple math."

House lowered his eyes at Wilson.

Wilson smiled back.

"You know."

"I know. She's been that way since she was a little girl, House. You don't want this case because you know it's the Titanic of cases. It could sink even you. I mean, for the math thing, you'd need a neurologist. Other presentations, an immunologist, maybe."

"Care to bet?" House asked.

"No, no, no. Yes. Fifty dollars."

"A hundred dollars and I get to pass my worst clinic patient off to you when they come waltzing through the door."

"That sounds ominous."

House ate a cracker.

-

The voice on the answering machine said, "Dr. House, this is CIA Director Jonathan Heller. I was wondering if we might be able to talk. My number is..."

House switched off the answering machine and whispered to himself. "Long enough day without having to answer to the fuzz." He went into the kitchen and pulled a drink from the refrigerator. "Can't do math. Meningitis. Mono. Immunocompromised for sure. Seizures."

He sat down.

It was fully dark outside. The lamplight gleamed off his piano as House put his leg up and drank. His mind felt like tethers trying to find a hook. He pulled out his ball and started bouncing it against the ceiling. "Dr. Allison Cameron. Let's look at you." He threw the ball into the kitchen and pulled out the candidate file.

"Immunologist. Mayo Clinic. Pretty. Beautiful."

House bit the inside of his lip in thought.

"Annie Heller." He placed Annie's file next to Cameron's. "Not as attractive. Not as healthy, of course." House picked up the phone and dialed.

"Dr. Lisa Cuddy. I will take your case on one condition."

-

Nighttime at Princeton Plainsboro was peaceful. With the exception of janitors, security guards, a few nurses and desk staff, not many doctors were to be seen. However, that night, Dr. Gregory House sat in his office, working as if it were noon instead of midnight. A small rap at his door.

"Excuse me? I'm Dr. Cameron. I'm here for the interview."

House motioned to the chair in front of him. She sat down.

Cameron was wearing a red turtleneck and some blue jeans. "I'm sorry I couldn't get ready. Do we really have to do this at midnight? I mean, I want the fellowship."

House looked up quickly. "Yes, we have to do this now."

"Can I ask why?"

"You can but that's not going to change anything." House handed her Annie's file.

Cameron took is slowly. "A patient's file? You want me to-

"Diagnose."

"But I mean-

"Consider it your patriotic duty. She's the CIA Director's daughter, if that makes any difference. It doesn't say in your file if you've ever burned any flags."

"I mean, I can't diagnose without.. She can't do math? That's neurological."

"If it's related."

"It must be related," Cameron said.

"Why?"

"I mean, if there's an underlying cause."

"What if there's no underlying cause? What if it's two different things?"

She looked at him sideways and then looked at his computer monitor. "Is that her patient history?"

"It's part of her patient history. What if it's two different things?"

"If it's two different things, then you need a neurologist and an immunologist."

"Then.." House said.

Dr. Allison Cameron leaned forward and gave the history a closer look. "You're going to need a lot more than just my help."


	3. Enter, Dr Cameron

"Previous blood tests show abnormal levels of calcium," Cameron said, sitting in House's office, well after midnight. "Severe deficiency means hypocalcaemia, means low Vitamin D or even kidney failure."

House tossed a ball with his cane.

"Maybe certainly something with electrolytes. I don't know."

House stopped tossing the ball. "Vitamin D sounds interesting. Might mean loss of bone mass. We would need to do tests."

"We? You would need to have a patient and I would need to be working here."

"You are working here now," House said. "Consider yourself hired."

"Well, thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. If you can't help me solve this, you're going to be quickly unhired."

Cameron looked put off. She stood up and walked to the end of the room, then looked back. "I've read about you. I've tracked your cases, your studies. I just-

"Just what? Never thought you'd see genius up close?"

"Never thought you'd be as much of an ass in real life as you seem on paper. That's what I was going to say."

House bit his lip. "Still more flattering than half the things I want to say to you. Why are you still here, anyway? Good doctors should be all tucked in by now. It's like one o'clock." He grabbed his cane and ambled past her out into the hallway.

"Hypovitaminosis wouldn't account for her inability to do math," Cameron said as House walked toward the elevator. "Or yours." House stopped.

"You're going to need more than two doctors, Dr. House."

The hallway was empty except for the young Dr. Cameron and the aging Dr. House. He breathed and looked at her honestly as if to say, 'I know.' But he never did.

-

"I'll take it," House said to Cuddy as she went over some papers on her desk.

"You already took it. I seem to remember a midnight phone call from a well-off, world-renown diagnostician who said that he'd take a certain case if I gave him a hundred dollars."

"It's for a bet," House said and sat down. "I'm betting on my patients now. There's this New Age remedy called 'luck.' I'm going to try that for a while."

Cuddy looked up. "So who is it?"

"Who is what?"

"Who is your team? Time's running out." She tapped her watch and stood up to close the blinds. The morning sun shone through the rear window.

"I'm leaning heavily toward Dr. Cameron."

"Sure, the pretty one. Why am I not surprised? Did you even-

"She's a good doctor," he said. "Maybe not fully realized yet but she'll be good."

Cuddy closed a folder. "Annie's being transferred in this afternoon. I guess you'll just need two more doctors by then."

"Because you know picking people to save someone's life, that's only a two-hour ordeal," House said and tapped her desk with his cane.

"You seemed just fine with that deadline last night."

House looked up in thought. "Wait, I don't remember coming over last night. Wait. You mean. Ah."

"Dr. Cameron called me this morning to confirm her new position. Congratulations. You have an immunologist."

-

House dropped Dr. Cameron's file on Wilson's desk. "Congratulations, you have an immunologist."

"You actually hired her?"

"I actually hired her," House said. "Now you can 'hire' her, too. Is that the euphemism we're using today?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of getting to know her, asking her out on a date and then 'hiring' her, but I think we're on the same page."

House looked perplexed.

"The thing that worries me," Wilson said, "Is that you seem to actually have a tough case, tough for you, tough enough that you've hired a helper in less than 24 hours without a proper series of interviews and practical jokes."

"The practical jokes come later. Always time for that."

Wilson handed the folder back to House. "So now the inevitable."

"What's the inevitable?"

"You get visited by the CIA."

House left and headed to his office where he found a fruit basket signed, "Thank you for your time and the position, Dr. House. Signed, Dr. Allison Cameron." He looked around warily. "Who sends a fruit basket?"

"Excuse me, Dr. House," a man's voice said from the doorway. "I'm Jonathan Heller. I'm Annie's father."

"And her Big Brother, so I hear," House said and sat down. "Have a seat."

The Director sat across from House. He was a stout, if not short man, with graying hair and a small scar high on his cheek. His eyes darted from object to object, as if he were taking notes on everything in the room.

"So, she's sick," House said, looking pleased with himself.

"Look, they say you're the best. They say you're an asshole but they say you're the best."

"I'm guessing, by 'they,' you mean, 'it,' meaning some file you have on a computer that has pictures of me lounging around outside near an adult toy store or some of my correspondence from my al Quaeda days."

Heller did not look amused but he still didn't stop looking around at the objects in House's office. House kept trying to catch the man's eye but couldn't.

"You always been so jittery?" House asked. "Stupid question. I suppose with your line of work-

Heller fell out of his chair onto the floor. House looked down in disbelief and then went to the door. "I need some help in here!" he shouted while the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for the United States of America lay convulsing on his office floor.

-

"Well," Wilson said, standing next to House outside the Director's hospital room, "Not only did you NOT cure his daughter, but you managed to work her father into a fit as well."

"I was being amiable," House said. "He did this to himself. Or his body did this to himself."

"And you're thinking, 'Oh me, oh my. I'm going to have to admit that I need a team now that I have two cases, one of which seems impossible on its own merits.'"

"No," House said, "I'm thinking, 'Man, I have to welch on another hundred dollar bet? Oh well.'" He looked at Wilson.

Cuddy walked out of the room and stopped next to the pair. "He's stable for now. But something tells me that we're going to hear army boots stomping down that corridor any second." She looked at House. "Whether you keep this case is up to you. Government doctors are going to want to take care of their own but if this is tied to the daughter's case at all-

"Then we'll only have a short amount of time," House finished.

Wilson looked back down the hallway. "So by the time the camo gets here, they may already be dead."


	4. Humble Beginnings

Work for Dr. House was bouncing a ball against the wall in the conference room adjacent to his office while occasionally glancing over at the new hire. Dr. Cameron was young, much younger than one would have expected in such a prestigious position. She was beautiful and House had hired her on a moment of weakness for mostly that reason. He really had no idea how she would perform as a doctor. So he gave her probationary status for their first case.

Work for Dr. Cameron was rereading Annie Heller's file, placing next to her father's and trying to draw conclusions. While House's ideas bounced around mostly in his head and against the wall, Dr. Cameron searched for similarities, subtleties, something weak and barely noticeable: a clue. She did so mostly in the range of her own expertise, which was immunology. The body fought intruders. Sometimes the body overcompensated; sometimes it couldn't respond at all. But someone had to speak for it. Someone had to help it along if it couldn't help itself and reign it in when it threatened to burn the village, so to speak.

Work for Dr. Wilson meant termination. It meant the end of people. He saw the end of lives, the impassioned last grasp at something meaningful. He saw people die alone, die surrounded by family, die fighting, die peacefully but he never truly saw anyone die nobly. He had to call it 'right,' call it a reason or purpose and he didn't know how fast it would happen to someone he loved just a few years down the road.

Work for Dr. Cuddy meant juggling. She helped the helpers but she had to deal with the giant, which was House. She had to determine how much genius was too much genius, how out-of-line was too out-of-line and then again, when to let the lunatic run the asylum. She was single. She was busy and she was focused. Her job also meant playing liaison when a priority case came into her possession. Jonathan Heller was such a case. As important as his daughter was to him, it was the Director's own sudden collapse that drew national attention. From the moment Mr. Heller hit the floor, it wasn't forty minutes before the men in black and the men in green made their presence known at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

-

In the movies and on television, the government locks down a building with a lot of busy men and women talking into radios, carrying guns, using code words and basically scaring the crap out of everyone around them. People look around confused until one of their friends or colleagues nudges them and says something like, "It was the CIA Director." "It was House's case."

In reality, it was three people: one in army fatigues, one with a suit (though, not a black suit) and a woman. The one in fatigues was a captain in the US Army. The one in the suit was Richard Chambers, National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. The third was Heller's wife.

"Mother was conspicuously absent when the daughter got sick," Wilson said to House as the trio approached them from across the lobby.

"Dr. House," Mrs. Heller said, offering her hand. Wilson looked at House curiously.

"Madeline," House replied.

"Excuse me, Doctor," Chambers said impatiently. "What room is-

"I'll show you," Wilson said. He, the captain and Chambers headed toward the elevator.

"Johns Hopkins was a long time ago," House said, looking down at the short woman.

"Johns Hopkins was a lifetime ago. What happened to your leg?"

"What happened to your husband?"

She looked up at him. "More pressing matters, I suppose, unlike fixing your worldview."

"As long as it doesn't get in the way of me saving people, the hospital has no problem funding my inflated ego. Or so I hear."

"I hear a lot of things," Madeline said as she stepped to House's side and looked him up-and-down. "You stay fit for a limper."

"Only you would use a word like limper. Aren't you worried about your husband?"

"He's in your hands? I'm not worried about him." She looked straight at House's face for a moment. "But you are worried about him."

"I find it odd. Well, Wilson, Dr. Wilson found it odd - You have a daughter?"

"I have a daughter."

House looked over Madeline. "Let's go see her."

"Let's."

"After you," she said. Neither person would budge.

-

"Parathyroid," Cameron said as House and Madeline walked into the room. "Governs calcium levels. Vitamin D absorption."

"But you're forgetting that our patient can't add." House leaned on his cane.

"Could be infection. Could be degenerative."

"And I'm guessing since you're so new and eager to impress, that you've already started testing for both."

"She's new?" Madeline asked.

"It's ok," House said. "Came highly recommended by my fairy godmother." He looked at Cameron.

"I've already started testing but to test for degenerative brain function, we'll have to get a neurologist. Since you don't have one on your team.."

"We get to go shopping," House said. "I leave her in your able hands, Dr. Cuddy. Let's go see daddy."

-

"Daddy," House said, "Presents with nothing but a seizure. Risk of infection? Risk of genetic degenerative disease that times itself to hit family members on the same day of the year?"

Cameron pulled out her clipboard, obviously frustrated. "Heavy metal toxicity leads to seizure?"

"But you're forgetting calcium."

"Heavy metal stress can weaken the body's ability to absorb calcium but that's as far as I can go without getting outside my own expertise."

House looked at her and smiled. "Your expertise is saving people. You know that. That's why you haven't run screaming out of that doorway just yet."

Cameron looked at Madeline Heller and back to House.

"I know," House said. "We could have this conversation anywhere else but here but for amusement purposes, I'd rather have it here."

"I can't be your whole team."

"But you are being my whole team."

"But people's lives are in danger, Dr. House."

House stopped smiling, stopped looking amused altogether. "You'll come to learn, Dr. Cameron, that peoples' lives are always in danger. Whether they're walking down the street sucking on a soda that will build up their sodium levels and kill them in ten years or whether they're having a happy romp with an ex that gives them an STD that will kill them in twenty years, people are always in danger. But most of the time, they've already crossed the threshold into the danger zone. What's killing them is always with them, something they've inherited, ingested or lost in their epidermis. What's endangering Annie and her dad right now is inside of them, working in scientific, measurable ways that leave clues and evidence, waiting for the right person to find them. That's why you can do this. Because you're a doctor and you know how bodies work. You also know how they die."

"I'm sorry," Madeline said, "But could I interrupt your pep talk?"

"Just prepping for the big game," House said and turned toward Jonathan. He lay asleep in the bed.

"Jonathan is a sports fan and I hate sports analogies," Madeline said.

Her husband started to shake.

Cameron grabbed his arm to keep it from hitting the monitors. "He's seizing again."

House's pager beeped. He grabbed it and clucked his tongue.

"Is it Annie?" Madeline asked.

Instead of going to Jonathan's side or rushing to Annie's room, Madeline grabbed House's arm. He looked at his pager again and then up to the clock, then back to Jonathan whose nose had started to bleed. He was flinging blood all over the room.

Cameron looked at House and House looked at her. "Game on."


End file.
